1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a monetary information processing server and a monetary information processing method, which, for example, deposit a sum of money to an electronic money card by remitting the sum to a financial account.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, settlement systems using electronic money have been introduced to retail shops and department stores, and come into wide use.
The electronic money has a monetary value, called “VALUE”, which is equivalent to money and stored to a monetary terminal such as an electronic money card or a cell phone compatible with the electronic money, and the monetary terminal is used as an electronic wallet.
The process of writing the “VALUE” to the monetary terminal is referred to as “charging up”, which can be performed using a dedicated terminal device (hereinafter, an “electronic money terminal”) installed at a store such as a retail shop, or can be performed from an electronic money server via the Internet.
Settlement by the monetary terminal is performed by subtracting a payment amount from the “VALUE” stored in the monetary terminal, and as in the case of charging up, the settlement can be performed using the electronic money terminal or the electronic money server.
An invention that uses the electronic money in a manner as described above is disclosed by the present applicant in unpublished Patent Application No. 2003-61943.
In this invention, a cell phone provided with an Internet connection function and an electronic money function accesses the electronic money server, and charges itself up with electronic money while communicating with the electronic money server.
This invention allows the user to perform the charging-up, for example, without being restricted to any physical locations and business hours.
When charging up the monetary terminal, the user is required to pay an amount of money for the charging-up to an electronic money center in order to associate “VALUE” with actual money.
For performing the charging-up from the electronic money terminal, the user pays money to a clerk at a retail shop or the like, whereas for performing the charging-up from the electronic money server via the Internet, the user pays money using a credit card previously registered with the electronic money center.
However, there might be some users who wish to perform the charging-up by way of the Internet but do not have a credit card, and therefore, in order to allow the electronic money to be used more generally, it is necessary to provide means for performing the charging-up that can be readily used by more users.